Cautionary Tales For Children
Wonderful witty poems great for reading to your children. The stories and rhymes will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

Research has shown how important YOU are to your children and how as a dad the things you do, and keep on doing, really count, whether you live with them, or you are a single dad and are only able see them once a month, once a week or more, what you do really matters. This site is dedicated to all dads but will be of special relevance to the single dad. Remember, you are half the reason your children exist and they need you whether you live with them or not. As their dad, you have what it takes to make their lives successful and fulfilling no matter how often you see them. This site is about all the positive things that we as parents have to offer our children.

Space Rocket

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Make a rocket ship out of almost any old tube shaped packaging you have lying around
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to make a rocket from junk packaging, but you will be a ticker-tape parade hero when you do. These instructions show you how to do it with a Pringles crisp tube and a toilet paper tube, but really any collection of tubes will do. Cut off single serving drink bottle top for the engine nozzle and a deodorant spray cap for the nose cone and the rest is easy.. . .
For our one, I didn't stick the Pringles tube lid down, that meant we could take it apart and later we made a simple satellite to go inside from a couple of mini yogurt drinks bottles, so that when "in space" it could separate and the satellite could deploy. . . .
One thing kids like doing is naming things that they have made. It adds the finishing touches, gives them a real sense of pride and ownership and personalises what they have just made. My boys said that this rocket was part of the Inter-Galactic Space Community, which was going to consist of many more spaceships and orbiting space stations, all of which we were going to build at some point. So instead of writing National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on the side (as I would have done) they wrote IGSC. That's cool by me, I love to see kids creativity and originality. We did get to make the odd spaceport out of some boxes. That's the thing with making stuff with your kids, you remember what it was like to be a child, how open and fresh your mind once was, free of the grown up worries you now have to deal with. It can be very therapeutic and at the same time you get to really connect with your kids on another level.

TIP:
1. Cover the tubes in white A4 paper before you glue them together so that you can draw on them easily, it saves you having to paint them and it’s really quick.

2. Draw your graphics and some black lines and boxes on to the paper before you wrap it round the tubes; it's much easier to drawn on flat paper!

As you'd expect from dadcando, the instructions are so easy to follow, and the download comes in both US Letter size and A4 just click on the size you need, to download it, and in this case it will be one, two, three, four, five steps to blast off.

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We can't wait to see the pictures of what you’ve made. Kids love it when the things you made together are published, so go on upload a picture of what you made. It's easy, just go to your dadcando My Page and upload your pictures into this project and we'll put one of them right here in the project picture gallery.

To give you the higest quality and the shortest download time, most of our downloads are supplied in Adobe PDF format for your convenience. Adobe Reader is standard on most computers, but if you do not have it, you can get the most up to date version free from Adobe, here.

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Make toys from junk

You can make the most incredible toys using just about any old junk. Kids love things to be quick, so get busy with a glue gun with its instant, incredible sticking power and the ability to glue almost anything to anything. Suddenly an old detergent bottle has so many exciting possibilities. Combine that with a can of quick drying spray paint and a permanent marker, and you don't have to be a rocket scientist to be, well, a rocket scientist, or an engineer, or a magician. The toys you can make from junk are amazing and the most fun to play with and you’ll find you can add engineer and magician to your growing list of titles. Simple, easy to follow downloadable instructions and graphic printer sheets will help you and

your kids make the most fantastic looking models. This canoe was made out of two shampoo bottles and really floats; great

for bath time.

All our downloads
are gorgeous, and the instructions
couldn't be easier to follow, with projects from the simplest to the most advanced, all explained in beautiful pictorial detail. The instructions are all original and like nothing else you'll find on the web. What’s more, we've made them all and had a lot of fun making them, so even before you start, you'll know it can be done. On dadcando you’ll find projects for every skill level, and my kids have play tested every model, so we know they work in the playability department as well.

In fact, it must be said, often they have more play value than expensive shop bought toys.. Don't worry if you don't have exactly the same junk as us, making things from junk is not an exact science; let your creativity and problem solving skills show through. When making from junk there are no rules. Start collecting empty packaging right now and within a week or two you'll have enough to build your first model from Junk.

Making stuff from junk is a great way to recycle your rubbish, and very soon, just like your children, when you see an empty ice cream carton, a wire coat hanger, or a used Tetrapak you won't see rubbish, you'll see a rocket port, a ship, or a dog kennel.

Featured Project

MicroCards
MicroCards are
miniature playing cards that can be printed out on one sheet of paper.
Just cut them out and play on the go!